How I got the shot: Charles Bradley

Lights!

Funk really isn’t my genre, but even I have to admit that Charles Bradley may be the coolest guy ever. Playing at the venue Plenen during the festival Bergenfest in 2013 he put on an amazing show, having played the same festival just one year earlier. Plenen (“The Lawn”) is the main stage at Bergenfest. Consequently it’s a fairly tall stage, hence I shoot almost exclusively with the 70-200mm. While it’s easy to get caught up in the action on stage (particularly with great artists like Bradley!), you always have to keep the lights in mind when shooting. A trick I often use, is to place strong stage lights directly behind the head or shoulders of the subject. This is very often flattering, gives you great “rim lights” on the subject and doesn’t overexpose the picture, nor introduce annoying flares in the frame. In this shot, I did just that, metering the exposure on his face in spot metering mode to not overexpose what’s important in the frame.

Post

The most important thing I did with this shot to give it the look I wanted, was to warm up the white balance quite a lot. I also boosted the contrast, but other than that, I only and dodged and burned a little bit.